


A Queen, Not A Sister

by Awesome_Sauce432



Category: A Crown of Candy - Fandom, Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Discussion of past character death, Future Fic, Gen, Grief, Hopeful Ending, Kinda, Post-Canon, Saccharina and Ruby Slowly Getting Along After A Couple Years, Sisterly bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25573579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awesome_Sauce432/pseuds/Awesome_Sauce432
Summary: The war is over, the villains are dead, Candia is safe, they won. Ruby and Saccharina do not consider each other sisters. Not yet.
Relationships: Saccharina Frostwhip & Ruby Rocks
Comments: 3
Kudos: 47





	A Queen, Not A Sister

On the day of Saccharina’s official presentation as Queen of Candia, exactly one week after the last Ceresian soldier had been chased beyond their borders. Ruby stood next to her father and watched her half-sister give a speech to the people from the steps of Castle Candy, rubble at her feet.

The cheers that rose up when Saccharina finished were strained, the tension in the air uneasy, but there was also relief. Devastation had been averted, annihilation had been stopped, and the Bulbian Church was licking its wounds. Candia had been decimated, but Calroy, Keradin, Belizabeth, and Ciabatta were dead, and they had won.

Saccharina’s marauders turned royal guards/advisors threw perhaps the biggest feast they’d ever thrown that night, and Ruby didn’t participate. She sat at a table with Liam and nursed a single glass for three hours, watching Liam get absolutely plastered, and she simply sat.

With victory was supposed to come freedom, but it had yet to sink in. She wasn’t sure it would ever sink in. 

Across the room, Saccharina was cheering with her friends (her family, the one she had found herself). She was smiling, but it didn’t reach her eyes. 

Saccharina’s eyes fell upon the rest of the room, and when they fell on Ruby’s, she didn’t immediately look away. 

Ever since the ice cream temple, they had hardly spoken. Saccharina had chosen to be her queen over her sister, and so Ruby had acted accordingly. She just didn’t have room for anything else. 

She didn’t know if she ever would have room for anything else, not when she could still feel the weight of her sister's ghost in the halls of her home.

They held each other’s gaze for only a few moments, and Ruby saw Saccharina’s smile tighten just a little, before they both looked away at the same time. 

* * *

There was so much Saccharina wanted to do, and becoming Queen was only the beginning. She’d been preparing for this for years, and now that the power was finally in her grasp, the opportunity to make true, incredible,  _ good  _ change… she was exhausted. 

When compared to the Ravening War, the War For Candia (title pending) had started and ended in the blink of an eye for most of the world, but Saccharina had been fighting it for years, and it still wasn’t over. 

As Candia tried to rebuild, as negotiations between the other nations of Calorum took place to try and reforge the shattered bonds of the broken Concord, Saccharina released magic into the world. There would be no more hiding behind thin veneers of the Bulb or weak lies about alchemy, and she didn’t want to. When the shadow of a cinnamon dragon flew in the Candian skies, she didn’t need to. There was a long road ahead, but Saccharina had started sprinting before the other nations realised there was a race to run. 

She didn’t think much about her biological family. Her mother was dead, her father volunteered to help lead troops at the borders to make sure they were safe, her stepmother went to the Dairy Islands to discuss treaties and alliances with them. 

Her half-sister was dead. 

Ruby knocked on the door to her chambers. 

Saccharina opened the door and saw her, saw the tension in her face, and her hands stiff by her side, and she stepped aside to let her in. 

There was a small silence, and Ruby took exactly one step into the room before finally speaking. “I’m leaving.” 

“You’re going with Liam?” It was less of a question and more of a statement. She’d been expecting it ever since Liam had told her that he’d be going home to Castle Manylicks for a time. Partly to deliver news on Saccharina’s behalf, partly to deal with his own familial demons once and for all.

“I don’t know if I’ll be coming back with him,” Ruby said, and that got Saccharina to look up. 

“Oh. So you’re leaving completely.” 

“For now.” 

“Alright then.” Saccharina turned away from a moment, half-expecting that to be it and for Ruby to leave so she could ignore the broiling in her stomach. But Ruby continued. 

“I…” Her voice trailed off, and Saccharina half-turned to see her inhaling slowly, her brow furrowed before the hesitation faded, her expression dropping into something more neutral. “I’ll send a letter when I intend to return. If I’m still welcome.” 

“There’s enough rooms in this castle,” Saccharina said. “I think yours can be safely left alone.” 

It didn’t quite answer Ruby’s unspoken question, and Saccharina didn’t intend to answer it. After a long moment, Ruby simply nodded and left the room, leaving Saccharina alone again. 

She didn’t need them, not when she had Gooey and Jon Bon and Swifty and all the other marauders that had freely given her what the Rocks family hadn’t. Saccharina had given up on her fantasy of having a relationship with her sister (and it had always been slightly broken since the moment they had arrived and Jet hadn’t been there) weeks ago, and she had more important things to worry about. 

She didn’t need Ruby or Amethar to love her, and she didn’t want it anymore either. But the next morning Saccharina found herself walking past Ruby’s bedroom door and wondering.

* * *

Ruby didn’t return to Castle Candy for over a year, but she didn’t fall off the face of the earth. In fact, Saccharina actually knew where she was for most of the time. She was still an important figure in Candia, so it only made sense to keep tabs, just in case. After a month or two Saccharina got word that she’d popped up in Eastern Candia, then she spent some time in the Dairy Islands, then she even ran some messages to the Meatlands on behalf of Duchess Primsy, apparently. 

With so much to do at home, in trying to help the natural magic of Candia flourish anew — a difficult task when all she had to work from were the works of archmages long dead and a scattered collection of followers of the Sweetening Path she had managed to gather over the past year — it was easy to forget about Ruby until she heard about where she had most recently popped up in her regular briefings about the going-ons of Calorum. 

And when she did remember, she would think about her a bit. They said distance could bring clarity, and time brought healing, and Saccharina wondered if Ruby was getting any of it. 

But most of the time, she tried not to think about Ruby Rocks. At least until a letter arrived saying she was returning to Castle Candy. 

The Ruby that arrived a few weeks later was not quite the same as the one that had left. She stood a little taller, her hair a little longer. Her eyes didn’t look at hollow as they had when they had first met. Flickorish was still strapped to her side, Sourscratch to her back, and she walked with the air of someone confident in using them. Her golden caramel hawk familiar was perched on her shoulder, watching Saccharina even when Ruby herself wasn’t. 

Saccharina watched her stare up at some of the paintings that hung in the entry, before clearing her throat.

“Welcome back.”

Ruby looked her in the eyes, and Saccharina still saw the anguish that had clouded them so much before, but it was faded. Settled. 

“I’ve heard about all of the things you’ve been doing,” Ruby said. “With Aunt Lazuli’s work, and with Candia.”

“It’s a long process,” Saccharina said neutrally, uncertain of how she wanted this to go. A part of her had thought Ruby might never come back at all. “I heard you visited Greenhold once.”

“Liam wanted someone to go with him.” Ruby shrugged, briefly looking away before glancing back. “They really hate you there.”

“Oh, I’m aware.” Saccharina sighed. “You were probably quite at home then.” 

A silent moment passed. Then another. And another.

Ruby averted her gaze, exhaling slowly. “No.” 

Another long pause.

“Your room is as you left it.” Saccharina finally said. “You’re welcome to join me for dinner.”

And equally as welcome to avoid her entirely. 

Ruby nodded, thanked her politely, and did a stiff little curtsey before disappearing into the castle, needing no guide to show her the way. Later in the day, Jon Bon found her, having heard that the princess had finally returned. 

“You’re letting her stay?” He asked, one eyebrow raised. 

Saccharina simply nodded, and Jon Bon gave her a long, appraising look. 

“Why?”

“Because this is her home.” 

“You can give her another one somewhere else. After how she treated you?” 

Saccharina hesitated before answering. “We can still use all the allies we can get in this world. It’s not smart to throw them away.”

Jon Bon stared at her like he knew she was lying, and she walked away before she could ask any further about it. 

Ruby didn’t turn up to dinner that night, and Saccharina wasn’t sure how she felt about that. 

* * *

For a week, Ruby felt like a ghost in Castle Candy. She’d done a lot and worked through a lot in her time away, but returning had stirred up some of the old emotions. Her room (her and  _ Jet’s  _ room) had truly been left almost entirely untouched, with a thin layer of dust that told her it had been cleaned, but nothing disturbed. 

There were plenty of unfamiliar faces in the castle these days, even if all of them recognised her. Theobald was delighted to see her again, Cumulous even popped in on her third day back to say hello.

“Have you thought about helping the Queen with her magic work?” Theo had asked her. “You’ve been practising while you were away, I assume.” 

“I don’t think she’d want my help,” Ruby said, a bit of bitterness slipping into her tone. That was one of the things she  _ hadn’t  _ been able to unravel during her time away. Where would she even begin? “I don’t know how long I plan to stay.” 

Theo looked at her a little sadly, before continuing. “You could always ask. It’s been a bit of a drawn-out process, we could use more first-hand knowledge.” 

Ruby thought for a long moment. Magic, at least, had been something that neither of them had disagreed on. “I’ll think about it.” 

So that night she joined Saccharina for dinner, hoping the invitation was still open. If she was surprised, she didn’t let it show on her face. If she thought it was an olive branch or a peace offering or a request for a conversation, she didn’t let it slip. There wasn’t much conversation, but at least there wasn’t any glaring. 

And after all their plates were cleared away, Ruby cleared her throat.

“I heard that you might want some help in your magical research.” 

Saccharina raised an eyebrow. “And… you would like to offer that help?” 

“If it’s needed.” And wanted. 

One of Saccharina’s fingers tapped against the table, and Ruby tried not to think about the way Jet used to do the same thing when she was concentrating very hard on something. 

“I can show you some of what we’ve been working on piecing together.” She finally said, and Ruby nodded, and they didn’t discuss it any further than that. 

Ruby wasn’t sure what she wanted from this, but she hadn’t been sure of anything in a long time. But it had been a year, more than a year, and she’d had enough time to think about things she’d done and said, ways she’d acted. She had been grieving, she had been angry, and Saccharina had been right there and she’d been the solution to all their problems and she’d been strong and magical and  _ alive _ … 

If she was taken back to that moment in time, with everything still fresh, she wasn’t sure if she’d have been able to act any differently. But that didn’t change that it had been unfair. But now some of that pain had healed, and maybe now was the time to make amends. Maybe it was too late. Maybe now she was ready to have another sister.

If that sister was willing to have her. 

* * *

Theobald hadn’t been wrong, Saccharina could use all the help she could get. There were precious few arcane magic users or experts that she had been able to find, and even with the Spinning Star’s library of scrolls and books and research, progress was slow going. A lot of the other nations, after two decades of ironclad Bulbian superiority, were resistant to anything else. 

If Saccharina had her way, she would be the final Queen of Candia. But for right now, she was still Queen, and that left her with a lot of responsibilities. So yes, any help was appreciated. 

And despite all the complicated emotions that came with Saccharina’s family, she wasn’t going to turn away a magic-user willing to help her. 

They were short sessions together at first, partly because Saccharina had so much to do, and partly because the both of them could hardly stand being near each other for too long before it became unbearably awkward. 

As long as discussion kept to the topic of magic, it was fine. Almost friendly, even. But sometimes one of them would stray a little too close to past events, or snipe just a little below the belt, and it felt like they went right back to where they started.

Saccharina was trying to be mature, trying to… be polite. She could see Ruby was trying too. And slowly, they set up some boundaries. Kept far away from topics neither of them wanted to talk about. Focused on the one thing they shared that wasn’t completely tainted by bad memories. Magic. 

Weeks passed. Then months. Then a year. Then one night Ruby came knocking on Saccharina’s door with a breakthrough and three minutes passed before they both realised they’d been smiling in each other’s presence and it hadn’t turned sour. Saccharina found herself sharing some of her solo research, accepting some advice. 

Gooey and all the others still held a grudge, she knew. But even they relaxed a little as time passed. Ruby joined her for dinner more often. 

And eventually, one day, Ruby found her in the gardens, in a rare moment of free time. 

“Can I ask you about something?” She asked, standing a few feet away, holding her hands together with her fingers fidgeting. 

They were more at ease with each other by now, even with their carefully constructed barriers and minefields of things they did not discuss with one another. It was not quite reconciliation, but more a truce. Both of them waiting for the other to make the next move, to even dare to try. 

“About what?” Saccharina asked, sitting relaxed on a bench, twirling a sugar rose in her hands. 

Ruby looked away for a moment, before growing more confident. “Jet had some ideas. Of what she’d do when she became King.” 

Saccharina froze for a moment. Of all the things she had learned  _ not  _ to discuss if she wanted things to stay civil, Jet was very high on that list. She had heard stories about her from Theobald, from her father on his occasional visits, from some of the castle workers that had managed to survive everything with their jobs and lives intact. But she had never heard a word from Ruby. Recovering quickly, hoping she hadn’t reacted with anything more than her eyebrows rising slightly, she looked up. 

“I’d love to hear them.” 

“Magic kindergartens were one of them.” Ruby’s cheeks flushed a little, and she quickly continued. “Like, teaching Candia’s children magic. How to do it, it’s history, about Aunt Lazuli, all of it. All over Candia.” 

“That’s… a good idea.” Saccharina straightened up. “A whole generation growing up surrounded by magic.”

“Plus every child getting a chance at a regular education too. Not just the privileged ones.” Ruby added, and Saccharina was nodding.

“It would be wonderful.” She made a mental note of it, filed it away to be discussed and planned and implemented in more detail later on, before looking at Ruby a little more closely. Deciding that perhaps now was the time for a leap. “Did you say Jet had ideas for when she’d be  _ King?”  _

Ruby glanced away, the corner of her mouth twitching a little in wistful amusement. “Yeah. She- she didn’t want to be Queen. She wanted to be King. She wanted to change a lot of things.” 

Silence settled between them for a few seconds that soon stretched into nearly half a minute. 

“I wish I could have met her.” Saccharina finally said softly. “I had always hoped to meet you both.”

Without prompting, Ruby took a seat at the other end of the bench Saccharina was sitting on, half-turned away from her. “I think she would have liked to meet you too. I think… she died two days before we met you.”

Saccharina’s eyes widened. “Oh. I… I never knew that.” 

She’d known Jet was dead when they’d arrived without her. But… no one had told her it had been so  _ soon.  _

“She would’ve thought you were incredible,” Ruby said hurriedly, as if to avoid them dwelling on that for very long. “I mean, she might’ve been a little miffed at you being heir instead of her, but I think she would have liked you. And… and then maybe I would have liked you too.”

Ruby breathed heavily, having not really looked Saccharina in the eye for most of this conversation, but finally turning her head towards her. “It really was just the worst possible time for us to ever meet, wasn’t it?” 

For a moment, Saccharina just blinked, but then she couldn’t help but laugh bitterly because Ruby was right. She struggled to imagine a worse possible set of circumstances they could have had their first meeting in. “It was terrible.” 

“I’m sorry I was such a brat to you. You-”

“You were grieving,” Saccharina said quietly. “I’m sorry for upsetting you so much.”

“You were just  _ existing.  _ That wasn’t your fault. It was just- everything being awful, and so I was awful.” Ruby wiped her eyes quickly, her gaze at her knees. Her voice had gotten steadily shakier. “And then it was all over and I still felt… awful. I still miss Jet.” 

Saccharina was quiet for a moment, sensing this was the edge of something different. 

“I’m sorry, again. I- I didn’t want to make this about me.” Ruby said. “I just wanted to tell you about Jet’s idea.” 

“It’s alright.” Saccharina shifted slightly so that she was facing Ruby a little more. “I don’t think any of us were entirely rational back then.” 

“I certainly wasn’t,” Ruby mumbled, falling silent before gathering herself up, seeming to steel herself and continuing, this time taking care to make her voice stronger. “I apologise for… everything. And I understand if you don’t want me to do anything than what we’ve already been doing. But- I would like to try being your sister. Properly, this time. If you’re alright with that.” 

A second passed.

In the back of her mind, Saccharina had wondered about this moment. Two years ago she had imagined Ruby asking this question and then having the opportunity to deny her, to throw it back in her face. Since Ruby had returned to Castle Candy she had found herself drifting back to the possibility, to Ruby admitting that maybe now she had room in her heart for Saccharina to be both her queen and her sister. 

A part of her still ached at the thought of entertaining it, after everything. After everything Saccharina had worked for, after everything Ruby  _ hadn’t,  _ after all that had happened between them. And a part of her still thought about her old dreams, of having a family, a father, and sister that loved her.

She still had the marauders, and she loved them fiercely. She didn’t  _ need  _ Ruby as a sister. But maybe she wanted her as one. 

“I would like to try.” 

**Author's Note:**

> i just think ruby and saccharina should be friends but also it probably isn't gonna happen anytime soon
> 
> and if the finale ruins this i WILL cry


End file.
